THE LONGMORE CENTRE

THE LONGMORE CENTRE, CHURCHFIELDS

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Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1268919
Date first listed:: 10-Feb-1950
List Entry Name:: THE LONGMORE CENTRE
Statutory Address:: THE LONGMORE CENTRE, CHURCHFIELDS

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Date:: 2000-09-04
Reference:: IOE01/03124/11
Rights:: © Mr A. Gude. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1268919
Date first listed:: 10-Feb-1950
Date of most recent amendment:: 09-Sep-1996
List Entry Name:: THE LONGMORE CENTRE
Statutory Address 1:: THE LONGMORE CENTRE, CHURCHFIELDS

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: THE LONGMORE CENTRE, CHURCHFIELDS

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Hertfordshire
District:: East Hertfordshire (District Authority)
Parish:: Hertford
National Grid Reference:: TL 32828 12530

Details

HERTFORD

TL3212NE CHURCHFIELDS 817-1/17/48 (North side) 10/02/50 The Longmore Centre (Formerly Listed as: Hale's Grammar School)

II

Grammar school, now teacher training centre and County Council Offices. Early C17, with C19 alterations, extended 1930-31, repaired 1958 after war damage in 1944. Red-brown brick, laid to English and Flemish bonds, with C20 clay tiled roofs, tall double shafted octagonal brick chimneys to left of south porch, above external chimneybreast, with moulded base and oversailing caps (a C19 conjectural restoration). PLAN/EXTERIOR: 7-bay open classroom, now subdivided, with attic above; and a 2-storey central gabled cross wing. Ground floor has four C19 timber 3-light moulded mullioned windows with oblong and fishscale patterned leaded lights. These are set below brick dripmoulds and have moulded brick sills. There are similar windows to ground and attic floors on end elevations, and on south elevation, together with smaller scale 2 and 3-light windows of similar detail on projecting cross wing. Doorway on north side has four-centred arch with moulded brick intrados and jambs, and external dripmould. South porch now covered by flat roofed link to south wing. The link and wing were built in 1930-31, and are not of special interest. Late C19 hexagonal timber cupola, with lead covered base and lead covered ogee profile cap on ridge over north porch, and 2 large gabled brick dormers, with 3-light casement windows, below brick dripmoulds. INTERIOR: although subdivided into 2, the main classroom retains its appearance as restored in mid C19, cased beams, boarded dado, and windows with pegged frames with ovolo mouldings. In the south porch is a late C19 Jacobean style stair, closed string, newel with finial caps, column and bobbin balusters and moulded handrail, arcaded landing. West attic room has 3 bay division with exposed collars and rafters and butt purlins set alternatively up and down, east attic roof with C19 trusses, repaired after war damage; roof over west has halved and pegged rafters, no ridge board, and mortices for collars at higher level from present ceiling. HISTORICAL NOTE: Richard Hale of King's Walden, Herts, founded the school in 1617 under letters patent granted by James I,

and it was subsequently known as 'Hale's Grammar School'. The school was to be administered by the Mayor and 9 Chief Burgesses of Hertford and their successors. By the 19th century the school was still using the single open classroom, with long rows of desks and a master's desk at each end. Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913), scientist and co-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of natural selection was educated at Hale's School in the 1830s. The school came under control of the County Council about 1900 and was known as Hertford Grammar School. By 1930 the premises had become totally inadequate, and a new County Grammar School was built in Hale Road. The original front door with its arched and moulded frame, and the date '1667' in studded nailheads was removed to the new school, where it remains. The old Grammar School was extended in 1931 and renamed the Longmore Senior Girls School, after Sir Charles Elton Longmore, Clerk to Hertfordshire County Council, 1894-1930. This school later became the annexe to the new Secondary Modern School built on London Road in 1957. The east wing had been damaged in a 1944 air raid, and was left partly derelict after the war until restoration in 1958. The building was used for a teacher centre and County Council Offices at the time of inspection. (Turnor L: History of Hertford: Hertford: 1830-: 332-335; Victoria History of the Counties of England: Hertfordshire: London: 1902-1912: 490; Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England): An Inventory of the Historical Monuments of Hertfordshire: London: 1910-: 112; East Herts Archaeological Society Newsletter: Hertford: 1949-1958; Hertfordshire Countryside: Moodey G: Old buildings in the County Town: Letchworth: 1946-1973: 45-47; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Hertfordshire: Harmondsworth: 1977-: 187).

Listing NGR: TL3282812530

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 461298
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Doubleday, AH, The Victoria History of the County of Hertford, (1902), 490
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Hertfordshire, (1977), 187
Turnor, L , History of Hertford, (1830), 332-335
'Hertfordshire Countryside' in Hertfordshire Countryside, (1946-1973), 45-47
'East Hertfordshire Archaeological Society Newsletter' in East Hertfordshire Archaeological Society Newsletter, (1949-1958)
Other
Inventory of the Historical Monuments of Hertfordshire, (1910)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.